Winter is visiting and it’s bringing its ‘best friends’ cold and flu with it. Retired Sister Hellen Ngwenya gives us some interesting and cheap medicines to help you and your children get through winter smoothly.
- A lemon cut in half and filled with black pepper powder and salt. Sucking on this can reduce the intensity of a cough; lemons are made up mostly of water and are high in vitamin C while black pepper corns are made up of 3.5% essential oils which help with coughing.
- Worcestershire sauce – Worcestershire sauce contains molasses, an ingredient used as a substitute for honey. Molasses in warm milk can be used to remedy cough.
- Take a warm shower: Getting in a shower with the bathroom door closed works as your own personal sauna. The steamy bathroom helps to open your airways and moisten and thin the mucus in your sinuses.
- Gargling with warm spinach juice cures the inflammation of the throat, eliminates phlegm and aids with detoxification.
- A teaspoon of honey taken 2-3 times a day for 4-5 days will ease a cough. Also taking garlic at night with meals twice a week in winter can relieve a cough.
- Drink half a teaspoon of poppy seeds mixed with 3-4 teaspoons of coconut milk and a teaspoon of honey before bedtime. Poppy seeds can be found at Indian grocery/spice shops and in selected supermarkets in the baking section.
